Cold Smoke Chinook (king salmon)

[Mario Trettenero]

Hello everyone - new to the forum and its a pleasure/honor to be a part of this group. I live on the Westcoast of British Columbia and love catching and smoking my own salmon. I’ve been smoking salmon for over 30 years both hot and cold smoke and truly love the entire process. I’m very excited to be expanding my smoking adventures into other proteins such as poultry, bacon, beef and pork products etc......

I’ve attached a few photos of my resent smoke process. Although a simple setup, she’s served me well over the years. I have two fans one internal moving the air and one exhaust which helps me dry the product before applying smoke although simple it works very well and produces some excellent quality products.

This will be the last batch that I do in the old girl as I’m retiring her after this batch. I’ve posted a pic of my new build its coming along and I’ll be posting several more pics once I’m finished the build. The new build has been very challenging as we live on the coast and the water table here is 12 -14 inches below the ground surface creating water issues but as stated I’ll post the complete build in a month or so

Happy holidays to all and let that heat and smoke rise!!

Cheers Mario

 

[ab canuck]

Looks great, Like the smoker build as well.

 

[daveomak]

Welcome..... Very nice.... great pellicle... no fat oozing out of the meat... You have learned the secrets to smoking fish... especially the oily west coast kings... Your new smokehouse looks very user friendly... Hopefully more "in detail" photos will follow.... Dave

 

[Mario Trettenero]

Thanks guys. I love these west coast kings as do my friends and family. They smoke up really well and have a very rich buttery flavour. I normally smoke these fish four days with smokeless breaks in between. I like to keep my temperatures between 10 - 17 C works well for me.

Dave - I’ll definitely post more photos of the build just taking a break from it right now the weather is playing a huge role but I’d like to thank the members on this forum with all your great advice and knowledge it’ been very helpful. As most of you builders know we tend to over analyze things but at the end of the day simplicity works quit well.

Cheers Mario

 

[Bearcarver]

Hello everyone - new to the forum and its a pleasure/honor to be a part of this group. I live on the Westcoast of British Columbia and love catching and smoking my own salmon. I’ve been smoking salmon for over 30 years both hot and cold smoke and truly love the entire process. I’m very excited to be expanding my smoking adventures into other proteins such as poultry, bacon, beef and pork products etc......

I’ve attached a few photos of my resent smoke process. Although a simple setup, she’s served me well over the years. I have two fans one internal moving the air and one exhaust which helps me dry the product before applying smoke although simple it works very well and produces some excellent quality products.

This will be the last batch that I do in the old girl as I’m retiring her after this batch. I’ve posted a pic of my new build its coming along and I’ll be posting several more pics once I’m finished the build. The new build has been very challenging as we live on the coast and the water table here is 12 -14 inches below the ground surface creating water issues but as stated I’ll post the complete build in a month or so

Happy holidays to all and let that heat and smoke rise!!

Cheers Mario

You say you have "two fans".

You keep showing pictures of Smoked Salmon like that, and you'll have a lot more than 2 Fans!!!:D

Bear

 

[Mario Trettenero]

You say you have "two fans".

You keep showing pictures of Smoked Salmon like that, and you'll have a lot more than 2 Fans!!!:D

Bear

Thanks Bear that gave me a chuckle and for moving my post to the appropriate thread wee bit of a forum rookie

 

[pc farmer]

Great lookin salmon.

Welcome to the forum.

 

[cmayna]

Mario,
Welcome to SMF. What's the scoop on your cold smoked Salmon. I see you use to use a smoke generator in a separate box, which is then piped into the chamber. Is the Salmon processed like lox and then cold smoked? Looks great!!

 

[Mario Trettenero]

Great lookin salmon.

Welcome to the forum.

Thank you Craig, it’s great to be a part of this community,

I do have a make shift smoke generator in place to do my hot smoke but I use a Bradly smoke generator placed inside my house to produce my smoke - works really well and has very low heat. It’s a bit of a pain in the butt having to load it every 30 minutes but well worth it. I removed the puck dispenser and simply feed the low voltage hot plate with cherry wood chips.

I do prepare the fish as you would lox. My wife and I owned and operated a commercial smokehouse business for several years and I took a lot of that obtained knowledge and experience and use it in my current endeavours.

I use a 1 to 1 salt to brown sugar mixture for the brine. The Chinook are dry brined for 12-14 hours depending on thicknesses I then wash them off and dry them for 12 hours within the house using my exhaust fan. Heavy smoke is then applied for 12 hours straight I then allow the fish to rest within the house overnight without smoke with my exhaust fan running. In the morning I’ll start applying smoke again for another 12 hours then another nightly rest before applying another 8 hours of smoke on the third and final morning.

Temperatures are critical when cold smoking as like most smokers it’s all about slow and easy. I keep my internal temperatures between
10 - 18*C this can be a challenge depending on the ambient external temperatures. My exhaust fan and vents really help me maintain my desired temps.

The end result is an amazing firm rich buttery flavoured salmon that is out of this world.

Trimming and packaging tomorrow morning will post pics.

Cheers Mario

 

[Mario Trettenero]

T

Great lookin salmon.

Welcome to the forum.

Thank you

 

[SmokinAl]

Welcome to the forum!
Your salmon looks fantastic!
And so does your smokehouse!!
Al

 

[petehalsted]

Man that new smoker is pretty than a few house I have lived in!

 

[Mario Trettenero]

Man that new smoker is pretty than a few house I have lived in!

Thanks Pete - it has all the bells and whistles just need to finish it now. The old girl will get me through this salmon season but I can’t wait to finish it so I can start experimenting with other products

 

[Mario Trettenero]

T

Welcome to the forum!
Your salmon looks fantastic!
And so does your smokehouse!!
Al

Thanks Al greatly appreciated

 

[Mario Trettenero]

Trimmed and cut ready for vacuum sealing. Turned out amazing firm,really tasty with a lot of oil - happy smoker!

 

[daveomak]

Are those fresh caught ??? Nice mess of salmon...

 

[Mario Trettenero]

Are those fresh caught ??? Nice mess of salmon...

Hello Dave,

No I caught them this past summer and I vacuum pack them whole and when the temps drop in the winter I pull them out and smoke them.

I feel very privileged to live where I do and to have the seafood resources readily available plus nothing beats been out on the water dragging my lures and of course having a cold one.

I have my second batch in as we speak.

Cheers

 

[daveomak]

Cool.... If you freeze them in the round, there's some concerns of botulism in the guts... I use cure#1 in all of my fish for insurance...

 

[Mario Trettenero]

Cool.... If you freeze them in the round, there's some concerns of botulism in the guts... I use cure#1 in all of my fish for insurance...

Dave - I bleed them immediately after catching them then place them on ice until me get back to the cleaning tables and at that point all salmon are cleaned and all heads are removed, tails are left on for indentifaction purposes at this point the salmon are packed in sea ice until processed.

 

[daveomak]

Most folks don't bleed salmon... I never could understand that.. I bleed all fish.. they taste so much better...
Anywho, since I'm anal about food safety, I thought I would pass that on... there have been several cases of botulism from salmon...